I asked this before, with no replies. So, I bought this new Soundblaster Z card with an ca0132 chipset. Sound IS truly amazing, best I ever had (for a 70€ price tag I didn't expect less)... under friggin' Windows
With Gentoo, I could make the sound device visible under KDE and Alsa, but zero output.
What I really don't get is this: the device is supported since kernel-3.5 by some intel-hda driver but it still does not work.
Why? Has anyone gotten this to work?
Seriously, this issue is effectively preventing me from using Gentoo. I can tell you, I don't enjoy Windows too much._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

Last edited by Martux on Fri Aug 02, 2013 5:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

Seriously, this issue is effectively preventing me from using Gentoo. I can tell you, I don't enjoy Windows too much.

Really, do blow your nose before posting.

Now, to the issue itself.
Your post lacks any real info (except for card name).
So, the basics:
- 'lspci -k' entry regarding the card
- did you check if the card is muted ? ('amixer' on the card should clear that up)
- what's the result of something like 'aplay < /dev/urandom' on the alsa device referring to the card ?

aplay itself gives an error that the device cannot be opened. Maybe I am doing it wrong...
Alsamixer shows the device with all the controls and channels, not muted. KDE gives no sound. I tried all channels in the phonon setting (using gstreamer output)...

Would be interesting if anybody else has this thing functioning._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

I did aplay < /dev/urandom -D front... Should work as well, right? The help is not too helpful for me actually._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

I cannot make aplay play any sound, no matter how I put the syntax. It's always "file or directory not found"...
What package does alsa-info belong to? I haven't got it installed._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

Aww, that is weird. I have alsa-utils and alsa-lib gst-plugins-alsa installed. Am I missing some packages?
If I type alsa tab tab in a root-konsole under KDE, I get only these:

Code:

alsactl alsaloop alsamixer alsaucm

Aplay is also installed...
Maybe its something else? I have now the following entries in make.conf:

Code:

ALSA_CARDS="hda-intel ca0132 snd-hda-intel"

Is there something wrong?
In the kernel I have compiled in everything under Intel hdaudio... The kernel config itself is taken from my laptop with the same basic architecture (corei7), just edited slightly for the new machine. It also used hdaudio, only[/code] the realtek one.
What makes me wonder is that more than 2000 people viewed this thread and nobody can or will tell me, if they have this soundchip running or not...
What I have read on other sources, it's pretty likely that this chipset isn't even supported at all..._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

The card is recognized, too weird it doesn't make any sound... Basic stereo output would be absolutely enough..._________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"

Thanks for being with me, VoidMage!
Well, if I issue your exact command, I get:
"error opening device, file or directory not found"
If I slightly modify the command, after something I've read it gives this, which means "device or resource is busy".
That also happens as root.

OK, looks like I need a timeout - I'm getting too frustrated with the slow progress.

But it also seems, as if at least one of us was missing something obvious.

Is pulseaudio running ?
If so, you probably need to set default sink/source. All it takes is creating a file named <your machine id>-default-{sink,source} in your user's ~/.config/pulse dir with a single line (name of the sink). The possible names will be in 'pacmd info' output. You can change the current sink using pacmd for quicker testing ()one not involving restarting the daemon several times..

PS: as for the "not found" message, it might be that if you removed that .asoundrc of yours, the names to be changed. Recheck, though leave that file out of equation for now.

Hey!
Thanks for helping out.
I assembled this new box with Haswell CPU and shit, but honestly never, ever had such a trouble getting *any* Linux installed.
After trying, Kubuntu, Sabayon, OpenSuse and Gentoo, Gentoo works best, but I some sort of lack the time and motivation to sit hours and hours in front of the machine just to make basic stuff like sound or networking work (all the others didn't even start or stuff like that).
It's sad to say after being a Gentooist for like 12 years, but my interest is fading... Sure, I miss some stuff with Windows7, but not enough to really care anymore.
With the tons of great OS software for Windows nowadays I don't really give a damn about the OS... Well, I do, but will live with it it seems...

For the problem itself: I had this very basic ALSA ONLY setup for years and years. No Pulseaudio, no OSS, no nothing. Always worked for me, not this time.
Maybe some time from now support will improve or my time-situation does, we will see.
Thanks again, VoidMage for being so patient and helpful!
Regards,
Marcus_________________"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
Albert Einstein
"The road to success is always under construction"